The Burning of the Midnight Lamp
by turtleducksymphony
Summary: She wanted to fight, but her mother's words echoed, "It's just your turn." Katara/Zuko. Oneshot.


**Author's Note: This is just a scene I couldn't get out of my head. It isn't like a real story and I feel like there isn't a good conclusion, but I couldn't stop thinking about this scene.**

The lamp was burning bright in the bedroom of the Fire Nation royal palace. It glittered with an surreal glow, illuminating Katara with yellow light. It sparkled on her dark hair, made her blue eyes glimmer, as she awaited a fate most foul.

She wanted to fight, but her mother's words echoed, "It's just your turn."

Zuko looked at her and was shaking, but Katara did not notice. Her rage overcame her, she glared at him with big cobalt eyes and Zuko did not know what to say. The door locked behind them from hands Katara did not see, and she examined the crown prince of the Fire Nation with distaste.

_"It's just your turn_." But Katara would have none of that.

"I don't want to do this," the prince said and Katara scoffed. _As if_.

"You think I do?" Katara replied.

She was fourteen; he was sixteen. She had seen him before; he did not know her face.

"Maybe we don't have to," Zuko said and Katara laughed mirthlessly. _As if. _"You're really pretty, you know?"

"You're not," Katara replied and the pampered prince was stunned. No servant, no slave, no commoner, _no one _had ever spoken to him that way. "Don't try to be _kind_; I know your type."

"You _know _my type?" Zuko demanded, clenching one fist. He was not going to get involved with a fight with this poor girl; his mother taught him compassion and pity, and his father was the one who locked him in a room with this adolescent Water Tribe girl and told him to fuck her. "You don't know anything about me."

"You've never been outside of the palace have you?" Katara said scathingly, crossing her arms. "Ever seen the world and what you're going to do to it when you grow up? You don't know about poverty, or─"

"Sh," Zuko said and Katara fell silent. It was not worth it. Her breath was wasted on him and she knew it in her core.

They stared at each other for a moment, awkward and uncomfortable. It would have been better for an older girl, for someone with less _spirit_, perhaps. But Katara sat down beside the lamp, letting it glimmer on her. And Zuko looked at the fire and tried to control it, but he could not.

Zuko walked forward, feeling uneasy, and kissed her on the lips. She did not move, frozen like her homeland. And she pulled back slightly as he pulled away in fright. Zuko touched her waist and she still did not move, as the lamp made dancing shadows on them both.

"Are you going to do this or not?" Katara asked, raising an eyebrow. Zuko did not know what to say as he reached towards her shirt, and then pulled back again. He sat down lower than Katara, which his father would hit him for doing, and the lamp glowed on him as well.

"I don't think I can," Zuko stammered, feeling ridiculous. The lamp started to blaze out of control, and Katara shielded her face with one hand. "I'm a failure like my father said."

Strange, that he would be so honest. It did not seem very _Fire Nation _of him, to Katara.

"Tell me a story, Prince Zuko," Katara said hesitantly, unsure why. She felt compassion that she had not known before, as she watched the muscular and strong prince look weak and ready to cry.

"I don't know any," Zuko said harshly and Katara momentarily regretted her weakness.

"You must know one," Katara said and Zuko sighed.

"Maybe," he replied, and the lamp burned down and fizzled out as the night grew long.

They did not touch, did not move, and Katara realized a great many things.

"This one time," Zuko said as he and Katara laid on the bed and stared at the ceiling, the lamp burning low now, "I realized my father was human. I didn't think he was before. It was just one sentence and I realized ─ this is ridiculous."

"What did he say?" Katara breathed, examining the prince closely. He had talked much but said little until this moment. Katara was glad that she was delaying what Ozai had intended her to do, but she also had to admit she was realizing that the prince was a person and not a monster.

"That he missed my mother. And he meant it." Zuko shrugged and Katara understood, vaguely, strangely. "I had never thought he could feel like that."

Before Katara could respond, the lamp fizzled out. They were submerged in darkness, and she ran her fingertip along his shoulder. It was his turn to be frozen, the fire dead and the moment heated as the room gradually cooled. And she kissed him hesitantly, wondering what it would feel like.

"Are you still scared?" Katara's voice said from the shadows.

"A little," Zuko replied, and they fell into each other. It was raw and hormonal and foolish. But it was not because they were told to, but because they wanted to. His hands on her, hesitantly figuring out where body parts were supposed to go.

The morning came, the lamp dead and the oil in it entirely gone, and Zuko and Katara were parted.

Zuko was praised by his father for something he did not do; Katara was ushered to her mother's room and consoled about things that did not happen.

Days passed, lamps burned in nights and the sun burned in days, and Katara saw Prince Zuko as she was washing the floor.

She smiled faintly at him, and he smiled faintly at her.

They recalled being alone with someone beside them, as the lamp burned down and fizzled out.

And then he slipped on the wet floor.

She smirked, and helped him to his feet.

And that night, they were together again, but this time, in secret, in lamps lit by hurried hands that soon met each other's bodies.


End file.
